Who plays the bad guy?

A matter of the economics of population. A matter of resources. A matter of population control.

Many caregivers on the streets with their strays have fedback that surrendering dogs to the SPCA is an inevitable part of their work.

Pups in boxes on their doorstep or along the route people know they feed. Friendly dogs leashed to the trunk of trees. Or dogs that are simply let loose in the vicinity of shelters.

At times, while feeding, the caregiver is caught unawares by a wailing litter of puppies. What should he/she do with them: Let them be to join other feral packs or risked being run over by cars or bitten to death by dominant, aggressive dogs?

Hurl them into the bush and turn a blind eye? Continue to feed them in the hope to integrate them into existing pack, and sterilise them when they're six months old? Board them at shelters until an adopter comes along -- out of their own pocket money when they're trying to make ends meet?

And when you leave them be, if they're culled, let them be culled? If you leave them be, what if these additional dogs become the trigger for people to ring up culling forces and endanger the lives of other exisiting dogs?

So what does this mean to our many caregivers who are already so stretched? Many of whom I know can barely get by with donations and their seriously limited financial resources. While they tend to those on the streets, many also have to pay for other dogs put at shelters.

No choice but to surrender a clean litter of pups to the SPCA.

But then again, who bears the sin of sending them for likely euthanasia? Is one who dumps his dogs to be picked up by the caregiver absolved from the 'sin' of killing? Why should the caregiver play the bad guy? Why should he/she bear the pain and guilt of walking out of the premises with afterthoughts that these pups will eventually, probably die?

Questions, questions and more questions. It's so much ache.